Chapter 178

Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it. It was a second before Harry realized that it was, in fact, a glistening strand of the same strange silvery white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Harry, astonished, saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and gave it a swirl, and Harry watched mystified as his own face seamlessly change into Madam Pomfrey's and then Professor McGonagall, who opened her mouth and spoke to the ceiling, her voice echoing slightly.

"That was the memory of the night you were moved into the Hospital wing." Dumbledore said, the light from the pensieve highlighting the many wrinkles that were etched on his face, "But enough of that. Today, the first thing I wish to show you using this pensieve is the reason why I have been unable to stop these attacks."

"Where will we be going, sir?" Harry asked, warily eyeing the pensieve. The last time he had used some kind of device to see someone else's memory, his experience had been very much less than pleasant.

"Today Harry, we shall be taking a trip down my own memory lane to the Monday when Miss Abbott was found petrified," said Dumbledore, pulling from his pocket a crystal bottle containing a swirling silvery-white substance.

"Does this have anything to do-"

"Patience Harry" Dumbledore interrupted him calmly, "You have my word that I will answer all your questions afterward, but I request that you hold them in for now. I want you to observe everything you can while we are in the memory as carefully as possible. That is very important."

With a small tug, he pulled the stopper free of the crystal bottle and tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas. Harry looked curiously at Dumbledore.

"You need to dip your face into it," said Dumbledore, gesturing toward the bowl, "After you."

Harry looked at the swirling memory for a second more, before bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged his face into the silvery substance. Just like he had with the memory page, he felt his feet leave the office floor.

He was falling, falling through whirling darkness and then, quite suddenly, he was blinking, adjusting his eyes to the dim light. Before his eyes had adjusted, Dumbledore landed beside him.

Harry looked around himself at the high arching windows and the neat cots, placing where he was in the memory he found himself in.

He was in the hospital wing.

Footsteps rang down the passageway outside, and Harry and Dumbledore watched as the memory's shade of Dumbledore backed into the dormitory, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what Harry immediately recognized as the petrified form of Hannah Abbott.

The memory McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying her feet, just as Harry remembered. Together, they heaved her onto a bed.

Harry eyed the curtained off section of the Hospital Wing a bit off from where they were standing, knowing that his own memory-self was behind it, watching what was happening with the help of Mage Sight. The real Dumbledore beside him was watching the petrified girl with rapture, his glasses glinting in the dim firelight.

"Get Poppy," whispered the memory of Dumbledore, and McGonagall hurried further into the hospital wing.

It was when the real Dumbledore tapped his shoulder that Harry turned and looked at the memory Dumbledore. He had moved incredibly close to Hannah, and was keenly observing the cover of the small compact mirror that she was holding. Harry went over to the mirror and peered at it.

On the cover of the mirror, engraved very lightly, was a set of initials.

A.P.W.B.D

'Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore' Harry realized with a slight chill down his spine. His mind immediately filled with fearful implications, and his head snapped towards the real Dumbledore, who stood at the base of the bed.

"Patience Harry," he placidly said, and Harry reluctantly went back to observing Dumbledore's memory self, who was ruffling through his own pockets looking for something. A second of ruffling later, he pulled out a small silvery object and peered at it through his glasses.

Harry realized with a start that it was the exact same compact mirror.

Not similar, but the exact same.

There were the same scuff marks around its edges, and the metal had turned a bluish tinge in the exact same place. And the same initials were engraved into the cover. Memory-Dumbledore's deep frown matched Harry's own frown as he confusedly tried to make sense of what was happening.

The urgent voices from deep inside the Hospital wing stopped, and the memory-Dumbledore pocketed his own mirror, erased the initials off of Hannah's with a wave of his hand, and moved back. Harry reluctantly rejoined the real Dumbledore to look at the scene from a distance.

McGonagall swept back towards the bed, closely followed by Madam Pomfrey, who sharply gasped as she looked at the petrified student.

"What happened?" she whispered to Dumbledore, bending over the statue on the bed, her face pale and distressed.

"Another attack," said Dumbledore gravely, "Minerva found her on the third-floor corridor."

"Petrified?" whispered Madam Pomfrey.

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall.

"Good gracious!" whispered Madam Pomfrey as she pried the mirror memory-Dumbledore was observing seconds ago and looked at it, "Completely shattered."

"What does this mean, Albus?" asked Professor McGonagall urgently. "The girl is a half-blood. Why would the heir even go after her?"

"It means," said the memory's Dumbledore, "that our fears have proven true. The Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again. And no one is safe anymore."

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